Though it required use of polarized glasses to bring the 3-D imagery to life, students and their teachers got up close and personal with construction and preparation of the Hubble Space Telescope via the big-screen IMAX movie.

More than 300 students and their teachers from 10 middle schools in the Lancaster, Palmdale and Quartz Hill areas of Southern California and a score of invited guests viewed the International Space Station and the Hubble Space Telescope through the eyes of IMAX cameras during a special screening of two documentary films Sept. 23 at the Cinemark 22 theater complex in Lancaster.

Billed as "The End of the Space Shuttle Era Celebration," the event for fourth- through ninth-grade students was a wrapup to NASA's 2011 Summer of Innovation educational outreach activities at the 10 schools. Sponsored by NASA Dryen Flight Research Center's Office of Education, The IMAX movie showings were intended to promote interest in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, or STEM, academic and career disciplines.

Students attending the morning showings are enrolled at Joe Walker Middle School in the Westside Union School District; Amargosa Creek, Endeavour, Piute and New Vista middle schools in the Lancaster School District; and Shadow Hills, Desert Willow, New Cactus, Juniper Intermediate and the Summerwind AVID Academy schools in the Palmdale School District.

Released in early 2002, the IMAX documentary on the International Space Station was produced by Lockheed Martin and IMAX corporations. Filmed by 25 astronauts and cosmonauts and narrated by Tom Cruise, the 45-minute 3-D film takes the audience on a cinematic journey of discovery from planet Earth to the space station. The 3-D technology enabled the students and other viewers to virtually experience the launch on the space shuttle, the exhilaration of a space walk and to float effortlessly through the space station.

The IMAX documentary film on the Hubble, released in 2010, chronicles the effort of seven astronauts aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis to repair the Hubble Space Telescope. Narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio, the film journeys through distant galaxies to explore the grandeur and mysteries of celestial surroundings, and accompany spacewalking astronauts as they attempted some of the most difficult tasks in NASA's history. The Hubble film was produced and is distributed by IMAX Corporation.

NASA Dryden Photos by Tom Tschida

Some 300 middle-school students, teachers and guests got a three-dimensional view of the cosmos and life on the International Space Station at the IMAX documentary showings.